Anderson Grace N, Conway Christopher C, Bravo Adrian J
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, New York, USA.
Department of Psychological Sciences, William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
J Pers. 2025 Jun;93(3):706-723. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12963. Epub 2024 Jul 16.
People low in trait distress tolerance are at higher risk for harmful patterns of substance use. Some evidence suggests that maladaptive motives for substance use account for this correlation. However, the generality of these associations remains in doubt because virtually all available data come from North American samples.
Using data from 7 countries (total N = 5858; U.S., Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, South Africa, Canada, and England), we examined distress tolerance's association with alcohol- and cannabis-related problems in young adults. On an exploratory basis, we examined how distress tolerance related to different substance-use motivations.
We found that distress tolerance was inversely related to problematic alcohol and cannabis use (rs = -0.14 and - 0.13). There was notable variation across countries in the magnitude of these effects, particularly for cannabis-related problems. Additionally, exploratory analyses revealed statistically significant (cross-sectional) indirect effects of distress tolerance on substance-related problems via substance-use motivations related to neutralizing negative emotions.
Distress tolerance's role in substance-use problems appears to generalize beyond North America, although effect sizes were generally small and varied notably across geographical regions. Distress tolerance's connection with negative reinforcement processes (e.g., coping motives) warrants attention as a possible mediator of its association with problematic substance use.
特质痛苦耐受力低的人出现有害物质使用模式的风险更高。一些证据表明，物质使用的适应不良动机可以解释这种相关性。然而，这些关联的普遍性仍存疑问，因为几乎所有现有数据都来自北美样本。
我们使用来自7个国家（总共N = 5858；美国、阿根廷、乌拉圭、西班牙、南非、加拿大和英国）的数据，研究了痛苦耐受力与年轻人酒精和大麻相关问题之间的关联。在探索性基础上，我们研究了痛苦耐受力与不同物质使用动机之间的关系。
我们发现痛苦耐受力与有问题的酒精和大麻使用呈负相关（r值分别为 -0.14和 -0.13）。这些影响的程度在不同国家之间存在显著差异，尤其是与大麻相关的问题。此外，探索性分析揭示了痛苦耐受力通过与中和负面情绪相关的物质使用动机对物质相关问题产生的具有统计学意义的（横断面）间接影响。
痛苦耐受力在物质使用问题中的作用似乎在北美以外地区也普遍存在，尽管效应大小通常较小且在不同地理区域之间存在显著差异。痛苦耐受力与负强化过程（例如，应对动机）的联系作为其与有问题物质使用关联的可能中介值得关注。
